How do you define journalism?

One of the most vibrant discussions we have had in class to date has been on how one defines “journalism”. Are documentaries journalism? How about commentators? Is just listening to someone’s perspective journalism?

On September 11, 2001, four planes were hijacked by al-Qaeda operatives on suicide missions to attack the United States. Two of them were flown into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center. Thousands of people were killed, a whole segment of New York City was destroyed, and the world was in shock.
Two days later, Emmy-award winning television producer and director Ray Farkas headed into Manhattan, armed with wireless microphone and video camera. His goal was, as inconspicuously as possible, to take the emotional pulse of the city by documenting peoples’ conversations with each other.New York Reacts is a compilation of these conversations, seamlessly edited together. The result is an unbelievably rich, searing, and nuanced piece of reporting, as New Yorkers try their best to comprehend the incomprehensible.